India second most targeted nation in terms of cyber attacks: CloudSEK

India emerged as the second most targeted nation in terms of cyber attacks in the world as 95 Indian entities came under data theft attacks in 2024, cyber intelligence firm CloudSEK said in a report. According to the company’s ThreatLandscape Report 2024 based on data monitoring in dark web, the US was the most targeted country, with 140 attacks, due to its economic dominance and digital infrastructure followed by India where data of 95 entities were attacked in 2024.

“India: Rapid digitization exposed 95 entities, making it the second most attacked nation,” the report said. Israel was on the third spot where 57 entities faced attacks due to geopolitical tensions.

“The threat actors impacted various sectors in India, with the finance and banking sectors experiencing the highest number of victims at 20. This was followed by the government sector with 13 victims, telecommunications with 12, and the healthcare and pharma and education sectors with 10 and 9 victims, respectively,” the report said.

The major breaches as per the report comprised 850 million records of Indian citizen data leaked from Hi-Tek Group, Star Health and Allied Insurance customers data, 2 TB of data from Telecommunications Consultants India.

According to the report, there were 108 ransomware incidents known in the country.

“Lockbit was the most active ransomware group in India, being responsible for over 20 incidents in the country, followed by more than 15 targets by Killsec. Ransomhub ransomware was responsible for over 12 incidents in the country,” the report said.